Marvel Studios is breaking ground with the new blockbuster “Black Panther” featuring a cast dominated by people of color – not just for the film, but for a soundtrack that transcends the usual expectations for a superhero movie.

This compilation is neither a hodgepodge of random performers from disparate genres nor a collection of rote and forgettable score music. Instead, “Black Panther The Album: Music From and Inspired By” is cohesive (despite the clunky official title) and compelling in its own right apart from the film.

Kendrick Lamar appears on five of the 14 tracks of the rap-focused soundtrack, making the most of a solo turn on the taut cut “Black Panther” (“Are you an accident, are you just in the way?”), giving SZA time to shine in the weighty and infectious “All the Stars” and also making space for The Weeknd on the closer “Pray for Me,” where Lamar declares, “If I’ve gotta be sacrificed for the greater good, then that’s what it’s gotta be.” Meanwhile, Lamar stands out in the dynamic mix of the hypnotic “King’s Dead” that also features Jay Rock, Future and James Blake.

On the downside, women vocalists are few and far between here. The film’s focus may be its male title character, but there are several strong actresses in key roles, so it’s a shame that a superhero movie that (finally) gives an underrepresented group its due also essentially relegates women to the background on its soundtrack.

That disappointing footnote aside, the sonic integrity is strong.

various acts

"Black Panther" soundtrack

Rating: 4 (out of 5)

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Franz Ferdinand is ready to go out again

Fourteen years after the release of their self-titled debut album and iconic single “Take Me Out,” Scottish band Franz Ferdinand is ready to go out again.

"Always Ascending," Franz Ferdinand(Photo: Domino Recording Co.)

The Glasgow group has grown from a quartet to a quintet since its last studio album, 2013’s “Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action,” with keyboardist Nick McCarthy leaving the band to spend time with his family, and keyboardist Julian Corrie and guitarist Dino Bardot coming aboard.

Another suggested change: Given the act’s new “Always Ascending,” it’s time to drop the group’s “alt-rock” genre designation and label them straight-up disco – or at the very least, disco-rock.

Franz Ferdinand recorded “Always Ascending” in Paris with producer Philippe Zdar, and the result is crafty, catchy and liberating – dance music with thought and humor.

Zdar may be key to the sound, but singer Alex Kaporanos is key to the heart of “Always Ascending.” His deep, melodic croon is central to the stirring rhythms, and his lyrics elevate the material beyond typical dance-floor fodder.

The release plays especially well in sequence, the tracks building a natural ebb and flow of momentum for an overall continuity that’s rare for most albums.

Kaporanos kicks off the title-track opener with a mellifluous intro before the song hitches into a full-bodied roll with a sci-fi twist. He then taps into the dark enchantment of “Lazy Boy,” where he endearingly reveals his role as a complacent lover: “I enjoy being a lazy boy, lying in your bed …”

The band is uplifting in the electrified churn of “Paper Cages” (exhorting us to “Step out of our cages!”) and gleeful within the plucky “Finally,” where Kaporanos celebrates that, “Finally I found my people.” And the group offers a wry turn to the bittersweetness of the percolating “Lois Lane”: “The over-30s singles night? It’s bleak!”

“Always Ascending” is a bit tattered and blustery at times, but Kaporanos and the guys pull it together for a strong finish as the vocalist gets more personal, asking, “Won’t someone bring me just a glimpse of love?” on the fluid “Glimpse of Love” and sinking into the gracefully grand finale “Slow Don’t Kill Me Slow.”

It’s a tender end for the otherwise rousing release, and it works.

Franz Ferdinand

"Always Ascending"

Rating: 4 (out of 5)

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McCutcheon's 'Ghost Light' radiates vitality

Decades before people were eviscerating complete strangers on social media for offering a contrary opinion, folksinger John McCutcheon was finding common ground among us all.

"Ghost Light" by John McCutcheon(Photo: Appleseed Productions)

And he’s still doing that with his new “Ghost Light,” McCutcheon’s often-gentle and usually poignant 39th album.

His empathy is strong here, be it for the hardscrabble life of the aging farmer at the center of “Burley Coulter at the Bank” or the tragedy of the Holocaust survivor in “Story of Abe.” Also, McCutcheon’s stories capture modern Middle America: On the wry “This Road,” he skewers the building of a road “that stretches here to God knows where,” and “Big Day” is a celebration of a local high-school athlete who has been a modest success in college, which is good enough for a shrinking community that’s, “drying up like every other little town.”

Then there’s “Dark Side of This Town,” a disquieting take on the opioid epidemic sweeping rural America, personified here by a popular local whose addiction leads to him disappearing one day and never coming back.

The warm Americana arrangements - featuring McCutcheon himself on hammer dulcimer, guitars and banjo – provide a natural setting for his yarns, whether it’s just Jon Carroll’s piano backing him on “Burley Coulter” or a full-rolling, electrified band grandly sweeping him along on “Waiting for the Rain.”

Yet these unaffected soundscapes are particularly well suited as support for McCutcheon’s more personal material, such as his alt-hymnal “Me and Jesus,” the swaying, fiddle-driven “She Just Dances,” and two death- themed songs - the somber “Ghost Light” title track and the lively “When My Fight for Life Is Over,” for which McCutcheon blended Woody Guthrie lyrics with his own.

McCutcheon may be in his mid-60s, but he’s at full stride here. And the song constructions may follow long-established formula, but they feel just as vital now as they ever have.

We should all be so lucky to be performing at this level 40 years into a career.

John McCutcheon

"Ghost Light"

Rating: 4 (out of 5)

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Life's a beach on German's 'Oceanic'

The power of the sea is neither good nor evil.

It just is.

"Oceanic" by Niklas Paschburg(Photo: 7k!)

Composer/musician Niklas Paschburg harnesses the mysteries of the sea on his new “Oceanic,” which he recorded in a studio overlooking the Baltic Sea in Gromitz, Germany.

The 23-year-old Hamburg native employs keyboards, accordion, electronics and a simple rhythm section to craft an instrumental collection that conveys the contrasting elements – turbulent waters layered with calmness, tranquility with a sense of foreboding. And his perspective appears to roam from the whitecaps to the dunes to the areas of placid pooling to the nebulous realm between the sea’s surface and the sky, where air and water merge to become a third element.

Paschburg builds “Oceanic’s” appropriately fluid constructions on an ever-changing blend of classical, electronic and pop as he issues caressing rhythms and spiraling nuance for “Sand Whirling,” a near-droning anchor for the quietly commanding “Anew,” momentum swells for “Fade Away,” dynamic tension for “Magnetic Perturbation” and hypnotic tenderness for “Abeyance.”

Other tracks are more complex and just as effective. “Fragmentation” lives up to its title with a pattering, percussive drive, humming bass and staccato breaks, and the deceptively wispy “Sonar” is carried by a dark undercurrent. Also, “Journey Among Worlds” and the “Oceanic” title track fuse the artistic energy of disparate parts into a smooth whole.

Ultimately “Oceanic” subtly, and inevitably, flows into its finale, as Paschburg leans heavily on progressively emphatic electronics, pulses and cascading riffs for a mild sense of aural violence.

Yet Paschburg understands that the sea isn’t destructive as much as it’s in an eternal state of reconstruction, and “Oceanic” embodies that endless flux.

Niklas Paschburg

"Oceanic"

Rating: 4 (out of 5)

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Surrender Hill digs into earthy atmosphere

Surrender Hill creates an effectively homey vibe on their rootsy new “Tore Down Fences,” a welcoming environment built on a comfortable blend of country, rock and soul.

"Tore Down Fences" by Surrender Hill(Photo: Surrender Hill)

The married duo of Robin Dean Salmon and Afton Seekins crafts a weathered “lived-in” Americana sound that gives the impression they’ve spent their lives enduring a hardscrabble existence in some forgotten Southern town – which in fact they haven’t. Long before forming the Arizona-based Surrender Hill, South-Africa-born Salmon was a frontman for the punk-rock New York band See No Evil, and Seekins was a choreographer in New York.

The two are legitimately Americana now, however, charming their way through the swagger of “Tore Down Fences,” both singing lead and harmonizing with each other with the unhurried support of inviting arrangements.

This mostly low-key release ticks through the triumphs and failures of relationships, from the simmer of the Salmon-led “Brighter Shade of Everything” to the grace-and-grit of the Seekins-led “Time Moves On” to the swaying duet “Misbehave,” where they sing in unison, “Let’s call it a night now, baby, and misbehave.”

The couple usually makes clichés work – as on the nostalgic “PBR and Cigarettes” that recalls what it was like to “feel like I’m 18 going on 35” – and although they saunter casually through the insinuating turf of the title track, they also tap into their New York days with the tribal-beat-based “Forever” that illustrates the darkness of feeling alone in a city full of people.

Unfortunately, “Tore Down Fences” could have used better editing. The 13-track collection is too long and too loose. A few tracks are slow to the point of addled, and many of the songs could have been tightened up by cutting a verse and/or doing away with stretches of the musicians just noodling around on their instruments.

At times the pair also tries too hard with downhome shtick, which backfires and makes them seem disingenuous.